After starting with Vale of Clyde and Glasgow Ashfield in Scottish junior football, he
began his League career with Burnley in September 1910, making twenty-four League
appearances in the 1910-11 season. After scoring five goals in fifty-seven appearances, he
left Turf Moor for Bristol City in the summer of 1912 and had a ten year stay with them,
interupted only by the First World War. Despite his four year enforced absence he played
two hundred and five games for them and scored twenty-six goals. He also played a good deal
of Army representative football and played twice for Partick Thistle in the 1915-16 season
and eight times for Clydebank in the 1918-19 season, as a war-time guest. He was suspended
for twelve months and Bristol City were fined £50 after he was paid while being on amateur
forms. Harris was awarded a £600 benefit by Bristol City before he left for Leeds in July
1922. He was one of the mainstays of the Leeds team that won the Second Division
Championship in 1923-24, laying on many goals for Jack Swan and Joe Richmond. After missing
only one game in United’s promotion season, he was an ever-present in United’s first-ever
First Division campaign. He moved to Fulham in October 1925, where he played forty-two
games and scored two goals, before retiring in 1928. His brother Neil played for Newcastle
United and several other clubs as a centre-forward and was capped once by Scotland. His
nephew John played as a centre-half for Chelsea and later managed Sheffield United. Joe
Harris, who played a total of four hundred and thirty League games, and went on to manage
French club Lens in 1934-35, died in the summer of 1966.